Adventures in Marketing

This semester I had the opportunity to work with a team of my classmates through this business simulator. The simulator project had teams of three or four students work together as a business to build a brand for a carbon fiber bicycle company. The simulator starts off with creating a brand logo and company name. Then the team works together to figure out which segments they’d like to initially invest in and start making designs for. After the name and logo are decided, the team divides responsibilities and appoints a president. Then the team works together to make business decisions and put a cumulation of marketing knowledge and skill together to form the first two years of a company from the ground up. The goal is to be a profitable and successful company that builds bikes and adds features based on what the customers are interested in. These were determined by several different criteria and I will elaborate on those as well. The name of our bike company is Tread Light Bike Co.

Balanced Scorecard

This is where the financials were shown for our company. It is what measures the teams ability to effectively manage the resources of the business. It shows historical data as well as projects how well the business will do in the future, the action potential is measured here. Tread Light Bike Co. had the most balanced scorecard. We were first place in total performance, financial performance, market performance, marketing effectiveness and creation of wealth. The only critique on our scorecard is that we placed second for investments in the firm’s future. There is some room for improvement, and we did tend to play it safe in this area as we were reluctant to expand too quickly and disrupt the cash flow.

Competition

Tread Light Bike Co. absolutely crushed the competition, ending quarter eight with 70% of the overall market share. We were able to achieve this because we had the largest selection of available bikes and we had two bikes for each available segment. Early on, we realized the more we were able to diversify our selections, the better we’d set ourselves apart from the competition. We hired the most staff and invested in specialized training for our sales teams. We also had more local and regional advertising than our competitors. I believe this combination really helped us to establish ourselves as the number one bike company in the carbon fiber bike industry.

Responsibilities

Our team of three voted Danny to be our President. He kept things very well organized and did a great job focusing the team on what the next steps we’d need to get done each week. In addition to that, he also was the Vice President of Finance and Business Analytics. His interpretation of those numbers were a vital part of our team’s success! The Vice President roles of Internet Marketing and Advertising were fulfilled by Abby. She used her incredible talents to create our logo and was great at getting the best and highest ranking ads out each quarter of our business. I took on the responsibilities of  Vice President of Brand Management and Sales Management. I feel that these two pairings were best suited for my abilities. I got a real understanding of how these two positions would need to communicate often with sales goals and how to make the brand appealing to more customers with design enhancements.

Objectives

Tread Light Bike Co. met and exceeded our objectives! The most impressive part was the revenue we earned in quarter 8, just over $10 million! We were able to achieve our goals by diversifying our offerings and being profitable and popular  in every segment. Our brand recognition was dominating even in segments that were not as profitable. The addition of the speed segment really helped us to keep our margins high even when we were developing features for kids bikes that were not as profitable.  We managed our bike offerings based off our customer brand reviews and made improvements as necessary to meet the demands of our customers. We made two bikes for each segment so that our sales teams had a better and best sales strategy and our customers had options to select from. We also opened stores for every available location and were slow to invest in costly rents where our competitors had a good stronghold. We we the last company to open a retail outlet in New York City and we focused our cashflow on R&D instead.

Different Approach?

Knowing what I know now, would I have taken a different approach? I would have pushed to open retail stores faster. I also would have not been such a timid investor in research and development. I would have invested in the bells and whistles sooner and not spanned out any of them from one quarter to the next. We had the cash available and I was a bit more cautious than I probably should have been.

What lessons did you learn through your Marketing Simulator experience?

The biggest lesson for me was seeing impact of expanding our focus and designing bikes for each segment. The diverse portfolio and high brand judgement allowed us to use the more profitable segments as leverage into less profitable markets. I learned to enjoy a part of math and I never thought that was something I’d ever have the slightest interest in. Another huge lesson I learned is the importance of teamwork and dedication. We all worked so hard and communicated very regularly to share information and ideas with our team mates to make sure there was enough budget available for everything we wanted to do. I learned I can be part of a team without being the person in charge of the team. I was able to trust in others and I really enjoyed Danny’s leadership style. I appreciated the way that any person on my team could fill in for another position to assist if someone was having a rough week. 

How did you benefit from participating in the simulation?

The simulation was honestly a huge confidence booster for me. It was a great way to put the puzzle together, so to speak. I learned multiple parts of how a business functioned and the importance of being first to market with a great design and new features. The simulation confirmed for me that I am good at working with a team and making marketing decisions and that it’s not just being good at taking tests. It was a great way to get some real world experience without potentially dangerous consequences of bad business.

What lessons can you take into the business world?

I can take many lessons into the business world. Specialized training and incentives for sales staff is vital to the success of a retail outlet. Appropriately staffing stores to ensure customers are not waiting around for an available associate is critical to closing sales. I also learned that the correct R&D investments can get a business set apart from the competition and then can build success on top of that to truly dominate an industry.

Tread Light Bike Co. Awards Earned: 

Top 10% Worldwide
1st Place Team
Certificate of Completion